Jan. 10, 2013. Nathan Miller, attorney for Delta Holdings, LLC, vowed to take the recent Boone Board of Adjustment ruling regarding the concrete plant on Seven Oaks Road to Superior Court. He called the ruling a tragedy. However, he mentioned that he wasn’t shocked by any means.

On Wednesday night, the Boone Board of Adjustment upheld town’s staff decision that the Boone Ready-Mix plant, which Delta Holdings began leasing in the summer 2011, ceased operations for 180 consecutive days between 1998 and 2011 and therefore should lose its nonconforming-use designation that was grandfathered in when the parcel was zoned General Business in 1998.

The rest of the Seven Oaks neighborhood is zoned Single-Family Residential. This summer, members of the subdivision joined the town of Boone in opposing legislation eliminating Boone’s ETJ powers. Senate Bill 949, sponsored by Sen. Dan Soucek, would have abolished ETJ powers for the town of Boone, but the bill died when the 2012 legislative session ended.

Mr. Miller and Michael and Geraldine Perry, the owners of the Boone Ready-Mix plant maintain that the plant never closed for more than 180 days.

“First of all, it’s a tragedy in my mind that the Town of Boone with no evidence can issue a violation and shift the burden of proof from the town to a business or homeowner or anybody, and that’s what happened,” Miller said on Thursday morning.

The town has received multiple written complaints from residents of the Seven Oaks neighborhood about environmental and health concerns regarding the plant, and Miller said that was what the town was basing its evidence on. The Planning and Inspection Department issued Delta Holdings 10 violations regarding the concrete plant property.

“Mr. [Bill] Bailey [director of Planning and Inspections Department] testified that the town had no evidence other than citizens coming and speaking to them,” Miller said. “My clients had to prove 15 years worth of business records of which they showed with clearly convincing evidence that the business never ceased for 180 days consecutively.”

Miller added that the next step would be superior court and from there, “we’ll see.”